I didn’t hesitate. I picked up Salvatore’s phone and unlocked it.
The message was from Vittoria.
[Make sure you remind my sister to pack all her papers. You know how clumsy she is—last thing the Family needs is her forgetting something at the airstrip.]
Right then, a confirmation from the travel booking flickered up on the screen.
[Your passage is arranged. Departure in five days. Present yourselves at the private terminal, Gate 2, Area A, Metropolis airstrip.]
My hand trembled as I tapped it open. There it was. The itinerary. Five sets of traveling papers, all forged clean and paid for out of the washed money: Salvatore, my son and his wife, my grandson, and... Vittoria.
Not me.
I placed the phone back exactly where I found it, but the pounding in my chest refused to settle.
Salvatore walked out of the bathroom, towel around his neck, glanced at the screen and said matter-of-factly, “I’ve got business with friends in the other territory next week. Go pack my things. Don’t forget my papers and the documents that move me across the lines. This is serious, Antonietta. Don’t screw it up.”
He flopped onto the bed with his back to me, already half-distracted.
“Oh, and get the kids’ things ready, too. I’m taking them along. They need to see how respectable men live, broaden their world.”
Then he mumbled, as if it were just another fact, “I won’t have my son and grandson end up like you. Close-minded. Stuck in one block your whole life.”
Before I could stop myself, the words escaped my lips, quiet, “What about me?”
The only response was silence. A long, hollow, soul-crushing silence.
Until Salvatore’s snoring filled the room, steady, unbothered, final. With that sound, whatever small, pitiful hope I had left… shattered.
I almost laughed. Laughed at myself. How did my life end up like this? So bitter, so pathetic?
I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Just stared at the ceiling of the compound, waiting for morning to come like it always did, without mercy.
When the alarm finally rang, Salvatore groaned and shoved me. “Why are you still lying there? Get up and make breakfast.”
Without thinking, I did what I’d done for decades. I got up. I went to the kitchen.
My grandson was full of energy that morning, ate three eggs in a row. Then he looked up at me, puffed up with pride and said, “I’m going across the water next week for the arts festival! Aunt Vittoria said I have to eat well so I’ll have enough energy!”
Then he grinned, oblivious to the sting in his words.
“Nonna, I bet you’ve never even left the territory, huh? Aunt Vittoria told me the people out there are real classy and refined. That’s why you’re not coming, so you don’t shame the Family in front of them!”
He laughed like it was a joke. But it wasn’t, not to me.
He kept babbling between mouthfuls, little bits of egg yolk spraying out with every word.
My son walked in, freshly showered, not even batting an eye at his son’s rudeness. He simply turned to me and gave instructions like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Ma, can you pack Marco’s things later? Pop told you, right? We’re flying out next week for that arts thing. Make sure all the papers and the traveling documents are in order.”
“Just get it done today. We’ll double-check when we’re back from the front.”
Breakfast was a whirlwind, noisy, rushed, chaotic. Then they were out the door, off to the restaurant that laundered every dollar this family ever touched. Soon as it came, the house fell silent again, except for the clatter of dirty dishes and spilled food scattered across the table.
I stood there, numb. Not thinking. Not feeling. Just moving. Like always.
I started packing the bags. Not mine, of course. Never mine. Theirs. Always theirs.
When Salvatore finally came downstairs, he didn’t say a word to me. Still clearly sore from the night before, he sat down, ate his breakfast, turned on the television.
I had just finished clearing the table and sat down for a second when his voice cut through the room, sharp and tired.
“If you’ve got nothing else to do, go bring the laundry in. God knows what you even do all day. Can’t get a single real thing done without being told.”
I jumped to my feet and went straight to the bedroom, smoothing the hem of my apron flat with both palms, then started packing his suitcase.
For five straight days, I kept my head down. I didn’t argue. Didn’t question. Did everything he asked without a word.
Maybe he noticed my silence, my obedience, because by the fifth day, Salvatore’s tone had softened just a little.
